Favorite Food

The spaghetti laid sprawled across the white tile floor, its tendrils and red sauce glistening like entrails against a concrete slab. The plate, its skeleton, was scattered in all directions, and the entire kitchen was flecked in red from the violent tumble the dish had taken from the countertop.

“What happened?”

“I- I don’t know, I just moved my elbow really quickly and I guess I knocked it off the counter and I-”

“Is that what’s for dinner?”

Brenda looked up from the splayed corpse of the meal. Her eyes met Edward’s shiny leather lace-up shoes. Their toes stood at the border between the hardwood and the tile. His toe tapped on the inside of the uncreased material.

“Do you have a problem with that?”

“No, not per se.”

“Well, what about yes per se?”

“That doesn’t make any sense-”

“You know what I mean.”

She stared at his toe, tapping and tapping.

“Well, Brenda, you see, intrinsically, I do not have a problem with spaghetti for dinner. It has no unpleasant tastes, it’s filling, it’s not horribly unhealthy, and overall, it is an undaring and presumptively safe dinner. I will be satisfied by it, and I will find it pleasant to eat.”

Her eyes traveled upwards to his pressed khaki pants, which had faint creases at the hips from where they folded as he sat in the same chair he’d sat in for five years, secured by a black leather belt with an aluminum buckle, or was it nickel? The prong was securely placed in the fifth hole, where it was always placed, where it had worn a soft line from its repeated use. Loyal, classic.

“Well, the way you put it makes it seem like you don’t really enjoy spaghetti. You’re saying that, extrinsically, you wouldn’t like to eat spaghetti?”

Almost instinctively, he pulled the sleeves of his blazer and perked his collar, as if preparing to shuffle a stack of papers and skim over a bulleted list of his dinner analysis discussion plan. 

Ah yes, what outside factors influence the enjoyment of spaghetti? I’m glad you asked, Brenda, for here in front of me I have-

“Well you see, the other day-” an exact scenario “I tried filet mignon-” that I prepared specifically “for the first time ever.” for this.

Brenda let out a short laugh.

“What? Are you trying to say, Brenda, that objectively speaking, spaghetti is comparable-”

“No, no. It’s just that I knew you’d already have something ready to say for the exact question I just asked.”

“Is that a bad thing? I was just thinking ahead.”

“No, you set it up that way. You led me to ask that question conversationally so that you could indulge yourself with your story about how trying filet mignon for the first time was a life changing and borderline spiritual experience, and suddenly spaghetti doesn’t taste so good anymore.”

“You were the one who asked about it in the first place.”

“I asked you if you had a fucking problem with spaghetti for dinner. And you said, ‘Not per se’, obviously implying that yes, you do have a problem with spaghetti for dinner because spaghetti just isn’t good enough for you anymore.”

“Well, I was just explaining that to you, that once you’ve tried some of the finer things in life-”

“Look at me! I’m Edward! I’m getting myself off thinking about how good a professionally cooked filet mignon steak that cost more than my wife makes in a day is so good compared to the revolting plain spaghetti I’m being forced to eat at home!”

“That’s not what I’m saying, Brenda! Jesus, do you even hear yourself sometimes? You sound insane. You sound like a crazy person. Maybe you should get checked for histrionic personality disorder.”

“If I should get checked for histrionic personality disorder, you should get checked for being a freaking psychopath.”

“Am I wrong for wanting something more than spaghetti sometimes? To indulge in things that I wouldn’t be able to experience otherwise? Of course a professionally cooked steak is going to taste better than you half-assed cooking. Somebody put years into perfecting their craft and created a masterpiece, while you just boiled water and chucked noodles into it.”

“I’d like to see you try to make a decent bowl of spaghetti.”

Brenda’s arms were crossed over a T-Shirt that sported a faded 13k with an equally faded silhouette of a runner underneath it. It had holes at the shoulders, and it hung over her old running shorts and locked knees. Her shins had drops of spaghetti sauce up to her thighs, and her hair was tied up in a messy bun. Edward remembered when she first held up that shirt, drenched in sweat, clutching her race number and grinning and panting like a lion after a kill.

“I could make spaghetti just as good as the stuff you dropped very easily. It would take me thirty minutes, tops.”

“Do you not care about the time and effort I put into that bowl of spaghetti?”

Her feet were in worn blue slippers. On her ankle was a faded star tattoo. He looked at her face, twisted in anger.

“It’s not that much time and effort. It’s literally just spaghetti.”

“When we first started dating, you said that spaghetti was your favorite dish that I made.”

It was true. When they first started dating, she would make the noodles herself, rolling them in flour, painstakingly sprinkling just the right amount of spices in the water, cutting the onions and dropping whole cherry tomatoes in the boiling sauce that would pop in his mouth as he chewed.

He presently saw the empty kroger wrapper discarded in the kitchen garbage, the lid of the sauce in the sink, no cherry tomatoes, no chopped onions. He wondered what had changed.

“You made it differently then.”

“I had more time then.”

“I had different tastes. Maybe my tastes have changed.”

“I don’t know how to make gourmet filet mignon.”

“I don’t expect you to.”

She suddenly fell to her knees, quietly crying into the scattered noodles. She looked around at the splattered mess that he wouldn’t find appetizing anyway. She scooped it up with her hands, letting her fingers curl around the slipping strands as they wetly slapped back to the floor.

“Do you love spaghetti anymore?”

He didn’t answer. He walked away from the kitchen. She kneeled there for what seemed like forever. She heard his footsteps come back. She looked up at him. He had a suitcase in his hand. His eyes merely stared at her, inexpressive. Then his hand reached up and turned the doorknob. He opened the door, and he stepped outside, and then he closed the door.

She knew he wouldn’t be back.